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Thursday, December 3, 2009

We are now in the afternoon portion of the program, which is a discussion run by the Committee on Professional Governance. The nine topics of the discussion are:

#1: Reference: How to respond to evolving user behaviors* in-person reference still viable? * chat, sms reference? (24/7 access?) (see article: "how to be a person")* web 2.0 challenges and opportunities* meeting users where they are

#2: Relationship to information providers: * how can libraries influence the marketplace for information resources? * new scholarly communication models * new relationships with publishers

#3 Library personnel* who is eligible for library education today? Is technology the one determining factor for admission into a library program? * are greater tech skills the greatest need in library education? * in the work place,, what of massive retirement? downsizing? what role can technology play here? * what of competitors for the library candidates? are we going to match their offers? * is the ability to "organize" or the "love of reading" no longer some of the attraction to becoming a librarian?

#4 Technology* how can libraries evolve along with the evolution of technology and user behavior? * will instruction become a much heavier load, more important than subject bibliography? * The need for ongoing training, evaluation and assessment ... * Library security redefined * who will fund the technology?

#6 Library buildings * What's the value of the building as a place? As a library as place? * how do we work with other uses and roles of the library? * Library service desks * space for computers and computer labs * quiet study; group study * social gathering: cafes, programs, meeting friends

#7 Campus roles * instruction -- are we stuck with 1-credit library classes? Is there some other direction to go? * outreach and publicity -- is there a theme or mode of communication we should work on? * value of a library credit course * "library as center of campus?" (are we? as a building?) * should librarians do research for campus units? (since we're experts, after all)

#8 Library networks * How can libraries increase partnerships to improve services and increase the breadth and depth of the collections? there are various opportunities with various organizations. * OCLC, Next Gen Melvyl* Regional management of retrospective print collections * shared approval plans

Heather Christenson, CDL Mass Digitization Project Manager, is here to tell us what UCOP does in this area.

Quick facts about the mass digitization program: * we're #2 in the world of the number of books we've digitized (behind michigan) * 2.5M total digitized books from UC* You can find them in next-gen melvyl, hathitrust, google books, internet archive, open library... and possibly other digital libraries... e.g. the biodiversity heritage library * but physically, they are on servers at michigan, indiana (backed up on tape), IA and Google* 445,000+ of the books are public domain * books are digitized from the RLFs and campuses * they have been doing it for about 3.5 years now -- in Oct. 2005, CDL was an OCA founding member

The projects: CDL works with both Google and the Internet Archive locations. The IA has digitized 200,000 public domain books. The scanning operations have moved back to IA; the space in the NRLF and SRLF has been reclaimed by UC libs. Funding is now more uncertain for this project because of the budget. IA is scanning from the NRLF and SRLF and some other smaller projects, such as the UCD state water resources reports collection.

The Google projects have digitized 2.3 million books, in copyright and out, all languages. Foldout pages are skipped. This project is funded by Google. Google is scanning at: NRLF, Santa Cruz (for Humanities and social sciences), San Diego (for East Asian, International Relations, Pacific Studies, and Scripps); planned to do the Bancroft, UCLA.

Why do this? Many reasons: * discovery, preservation, possible new textual research, and collection management -- might give us the opportunity to use our space in different ways. Also: to be a leader in this area ... and, carpe diem! Let's get started on this project.

Will books go away? * No, but there's a lot to explore. We need to do research on what users need.

What do people at CDL do all day? * CDL's role is to make relationships with partners, provide technical leadership, project management and coordination, guidance to campuses and facilitation, and stewardship of the output. For instance, they are currently working on the IA and Google contracts, and have played a big role in the HathiTrust project.

The Google Settlement: * There has been a lot of controversy over the Google settlement: people are concerned that it would give Google a monopoly over book digitization; corner the market on orphan works, etc. On the other hand, the benefits are that it may make many books more accessible; and allows UC to retain its copies of Google digitized in-copyright scans for replacement purposes.

Finally: things that libraries should advocate for: * assist and encourage rights holders to release their books in the public sphere* press for orphan works legislation* robust privacy controls * neither we, nor other librareis, need rush to purchase an institutional subscription

What's next? * digitization continues * Google books and next, IA books, will go into the HathiTrust * planning for access mechanisms in HathiTrust, e.g. in WorldCat Local * making books viewable -- Univ. of Mich. is using a grant to help determine copyright for individual books. Goal is to make as many books viewable as possible.

Michael Yonezawa of RPD gave a quick update; he pointed out that grant applications for this year are due by January 9. Information on the grant process for this year, and last year's grant recipient information, is all posted on the website. There are three types of research grants again this year: grants, minigrants and presentation grants.

There's been a lot of discussion so far about the UC Commission on the Future. Both Lucia Diamond and Janet Lockwood mentioned that the Commission is dealing with issues that affect libraries and should get feedback from LAUC members; Lucia also mentioned that they really value written comments and feedback -- there's a button on the website to leave comments, and you can push it and tell them what you think.

Janet Lockwood also talked about the Commission on the Future, as a major UCOP initiative. Lockwood said that can't think of any of the commission workgroups where the libraries don't have an interest (budget, etc) -- and strongly encouraged librarians to give feedback to the commission.

The other major initiative at UCOP is the HR committee on post-retirement benefits; they have been visiting all the campuses. The issue is to present to the campuses the status of the retirement plan, and post-retirement benefits (esp. health benefits). We were assured however that the retirement benefits we have are not going anywhere.

There's also a major study of salaries in the system, including for librarians; with a comparison to 8 other schools (including Harvard and MIT). The report was just posted on the website: see the link to the report.The report used the salary data of 535 librarians (including ULs and AULs).

Lucia had asked Lockwood to address two additional issues including:

* The distinguished step -- Lockwood mentioned that there are similarities between the distinguished step and step 6 of the ladder faculty; which just got worked on by UCOP. However: there was no consensus in UCOP about step 6, though; it really depends on the local campus. Similarly, Lockwood thinks that UCOP would see the distinguished step as part of the normal merit review process; they wouldn't intervene in that discussion.

* The second question was about the trend of hiring outside the librarian series, especially with technology. Again, Lockwood said that UCOP supports local authority and tries to stay out of the decisions that are made at the local level.

Finally, Lockwood mentioned that the restructuring at UCOP continues; her department has gone from 17 to 8, for instance.

Questions: A question was asked about the disparity of distinguished step requirements; merit increase requirements are very different on various campuses. The questioner said that it's a little disingenuous for UCOP to say it's up to the individual campuses, since so much is *not* left up to the campuses.

response: UCOP needs a written summary or chart of exactly what role you want UCOP to play in determining the step. OP won't write the criteria, but they are happy to facilitate among the 10 campuses.

The LAUC assembly is now underway in Barrows Hall on the Berkeley campus. We are now in the introductory morning part of the assembly, with the president's report and a report from Janet Lockwood of UCOP.

Chuck Ekman gave the introduction to the assembly and talked about the importance of discussing professional governance in the library. After some official business, including thanking the local arrangements committee, Lucia Diamond gave her president's report, announcing the four travel awards that were given to attendees and thanking members.

Lucia said that the issues that LAUC is broadly discussing include finding technology that will allow us to communicate across the campuses; the UC Commission on the Future; and the loss of librarians in the system that may not be replaced (in addition, three UL positions are open now). Other major topics include the future of librarianship (to be discussed this afternoon) and the impact of budget cuts on all of us.

Lucia pointed out that this will be just the beginning of the discussion, and that other libraries who are facing the same issues might be interested in our results. Additionally, members of the CPG (who are leading the discussion this afternoon) will be meeting with members on campuses for discussion; and there will also be cross-campus discussion via communication tools, eg. a wiki and blog to be set up.

She also addressed the LAUC budget. LAUC was asked to only do one assembly per year. We also had to send in a LAUC budget; which was approved, but we have to cut the LAUC budget by nearly 1/3 for next year (that's the worst case scenario; might not happen).

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This blog is a collection of posts by LAUC members about topics relating to LAUC, including assemblies and systemwide discussion. This blog does not necessarily represent the views of LAUC or any of its members.